Buyers spend HK$6b on Hong Kong new flats

Homebuyers splashed out about HK$6 billion buying more than 1,000 new flats in Tseung Kwan O last week, which not only gave a boost to developers' balance sheets, but to realtors as well.

CK Hutchison Holdings said it had pulled in HK$5.63 billion from the sale of 740 units at Hemera, which sits atop the Lohas Park MTR station, in just nine hours on Saturday.

K Wah International Holdings has sold 284 units at Twin Peaks near the Tseung Kwan O MTR station since the project was launched on March 31.

Sammy Po Siu-ming, the chief executive at Midland Realty's residential department, believes the firm accounted for about 33 per cent of the units sold at Hemera and 30 per cent of the sales at Twin Peaks.

Market sources said Centaline Property Agency also secured a similar market share in the sales of the two projects.

"Last week was a big harvest for us," Po said, adding that about 240 units at Hemera were handled by Midland.

Hong Kong Property Services (Agency), Midland's wholly owned subsidiary, also sold about 80 Hemera flats.

CK Hutchison paid agency commissions of 2 to 3 per cent on every successful deal, while 2.5 to 4 per cent was paid out by K Wah.

It means the two developers will pay an estimated HK$120 million in commission fees to encourage agents to help sell their projects.

With an average of HK$200,000 in commission for every flat sold at Hemera and Twin Peaks, industry experts estimated Midland would have generated HK$66 million from the two projects alone.

"We had about 1,000 agents stationed in CK Hutchison's sales office when sales began on Saturday. It was just like fighting a battle on that day as we worked non-stop until our last customer left at around midnight," Po said.

CK Hutchison has registered about 14,000 potential buyers and each of them submitted HK$100,000 in deposit to reserve their buying right. The deposits will be refunded to those who decide not to buy on the launch date.

Po said an agent at Hong Kong Property managed to sell four Hemera flats and generated a total commission of HK$900,000.

Given that an agent is entitled to a share of the commission revenue earned, Po said that agent would have pocketed about HK$270,000 in one day.

He believed strong sales in the primary residential market would compensate for the sharp fall in commission revenue in the secondary market.

"We will recruit more agents and add new branches as developers are likely to accelerate new launches this year," he said.

Midland has more than 3,000 agents in 220 branches, while Hong Kong Property has a team of more than 1,000 agents across 71 branches.

The company recently paid more than HK$600,000 a month for a shop in Tseung Kwan O to bolster its agency network.

Over the weekend, CK Hutchison said it would release a further 398 units at Hemera for sale on Saturday. The latest batch of units would be worth HK$3.5 billion if all are sold out.

The developer will give out HK$70 million in commission to agents to spur sales for the latest batch of units.